xxviii, 695 pages : 24 cm

Holly Devor spent many years compiling indepth interviews and researching the lives of transsexual and transgendered people, many of whom became her friends. She traces the everyday and significant events that coalesce in transsexual identity, culminating in gender and sex transformation. After an introduction which grounds the discussion in historical and theoretical contexts, the author takes a life course approach to understanding female-to-male transsexualism. Using her subjects' own words as illustrations, Devor looks at how childhood, adolescent, and adult experiences with family members, peers, and lovers work to shape and clarify female-to-male transsexuals' images of themselves as people who should be men

Includes bibliographical references (pages 669-684) and indexes

Foreword / Jamison "James" Green -- 1. Have Female-to-Male Transsexuals Always Existed? -- 2. Theories about Transsexualism -- 3. Finding Out about Gender: Theories of Childhood Gender Acquisition -- 4. Family Scenes -- 5. Who Would Want to Be a Girl?: The Women (and Girls) in Participants' Families -- 6. Men Rule: The Men (and Boys) in Participants' Families -- 7. Lessons Learned at Home: Summary of Family Relationships -- 8. Childhood Friends and Foes: Relationships with Non-Family Members -- 9. Adolescence Is about Change -- 10. Crises at Puberty -- 11. Adolescent Friendships -- 12. Women Are Different: Relationships with Female Relatives -- 13. Access Denied, Restrictions Apply: Relationships with Male Relatives -- 14. Looking for Love, Groping for Identity: Adolescent Sexuality -- 15. Concluding Adolescence -- 16. Finding Identities -- 17. A Long Road -- 18. Making the Decision -- 19. Making the Changes -- 20. Coming Out Stories -- 21. Are We There Yet? -- 22. Nature's Calls: Toilet Traumas and Medical Necessities -- 23. The Naked Truth about Sexuality -- 24. Visions of Genders -- 25. Lessons from the Journey -- 26. Conclusions and Questions

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